High Performing Executives Work Faster

Siimon Reynolds is a worldwide known business mentor and international speaker that coaches executives and entrepreneurs on maximising business performance. He has been featured in numerous magazine and newspaper articles and TV shows and is also a contributor to Forbes.

When it comes to professional high performance, Reynolds believes getting your work done quickly is one of the most important characteristics in a business person. But is yet a craft that few executives spend time developing.

If you think about it, it’s worth learning. As much as you might be a brilliant, motivated and experienced person, if you have a slow performance, reaching your potential will become less probable.

Next, we have outlined Reynolds three-step technique to improve your pace at work and become a more effective performer:

1. The 80% Rule

Invented by well known Canadian business coach Dan Sullivan, The 80% Rule suggests you should do tasks to about 80% of excellent standard, then move on to another task. It’s extremely effective because it’s often the last 20% of the task that takes much of the time. Yet in general doing that last 20% is not appreciated by other people, nor is it necessarily particularly useful to you that you got it done.

Be clear that it’s not about not finishing the job, but rather finishing it to an 80% excellent standard. Perfectionism tends to destroy productivity.

2. Rush The Unimportant

You can usually achieve twice as much if you rush jobs that aren’t crucial to your business.

Most tasks don’t really matter, but many people give trivial tasks the same care they give important jobs. The net result of that attitude is they no longer have enough time available to do the vital jobs superbly.

Be aware, you do not have enough time in the day to do everything well. It’s necessary you pick your battles and rush the rest.

3. Practice The Closed Door Policy

No doubt you’ve heard of the Open Door Policy- that your door should be open to any staff that want to see the boss. In reality, that view has been responsible for more lost productivity than almost any other way of working.

Interruptions are the great killer of high achievement. Try keeping your door closed most of the day. It’s not just the time lost from the interruption itself, it’s the time it takes to re-focus and get fully engaged in the previous task as well.

If you let people know that you’re available from X time to Y time most days, they’ll organize themselves to see you at those times. This will then leave you with most of your day available to get more valuable work done.

These three techniques are incredibly simple to institute, but will have a profoundly positive influence on the speed at which you do your work. We invite you to begin doing them this week and within ten days you will see your output will be higher and your stress levels will be lower.